Field of Interest Funds

Field of interest funds connect people with their passions and specific areas of need in their community. Education, the arts, the environment and disadvantaged youth and families are a few areas donors can support through these funds. The Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines will award grants to community organizations and programs that are making a difference in the areas you select.

While you determine the direction of your field of interest fund, maintenance is left to the Community Foundation. Our professional staff continually monitor changing community needs to ensure grants make the most impact in your field of interest and create your own personal legacy of giving.

You may add to your field of interest fund any time and so can others who share your interests in the community.

Establishing a field of interest fund is

Strategic: A field of interest fund enables the Community Foundation to address the changing community needs in the areas you designate.

Easy: You can be confident that your charitable dollars are being wisely invested, managed and granted.

Flexible: Add to the fund at any time. The Community Foundation can accept donations of almost any asset including cash, stock and real estate.

Accountable: You can access information about your fund anytime online through Manage My Fund, and you will receive quarterly statements that show all activity in your fund.

Who should establish a field of interest fund?

A field of interest fund is ideal for individuals, families and groups who want:

Grants made only to organizations that work in their particular area of interest.

Maximum impact from charitable dollars.

To enable the Community Foundation to address changing needs in perpetuity.

Financial facts

A field of interest fund can be established in any amount.

The ability to combine funds into professionally managed portfolios allows greater diversification of investments and access to investment vehicles that would not be possible for individual funds.

The Community Foundation is about more than transactions; we are about transformation. While fees collected for funds held at the Community Foundation support the processing of grant checks, accepting and acknowledging donations, completing annual audits and reporting; our fees also make you part of the change we enable in the communities we serve. It's the community convenings, the strategic grantmaking, the donor-connections, the facilitated dialogues, the nonprofit trainings and the promotion of charitable giving that ultimately transforms the communities we call home. Thank you for joining us to improve quality of life in your community. We're simply better together.

Click here to view the Community Foundation's administrative fee structure.

Get started

Discuss field of interest funds with us.

We will customize a fund agreement for you.

Make an initial contribution.

Donors who establish or give to Endow Iowa qualified funds are eligible to receive a 25% Endow Iowa Tax Credit in addition to normal federal charitable income tax deductions.